The big wrinkle in the multi-trillion-dollar AI buildout | CNN Business

Big Tech is spending at a scale rarely seen outside wartime or space races, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence chips and data centres it says will reshape the global economy. But behind the bold promises and soaring stock prices lies an uncomfortable question with worldwide implications: if the hardware powering the AI boom ages faster than expected, could today’s historic investments become tomorrow’s financial burden and trigger a tech bubble with consequences far beyond Silicon Valley?

By Clare Duffy Industry watchers have started to wonder whether tech companies will see AI returns quickly enough to keep up with how often they must upgrade to the latest chips to power their data centers. (Noah Berger/Reuters for AWS) New York – There’s a giant question hanging over the tech industry: How long will its massive investments in AI infrastructure really last?